There were hundreds of them, singly and in groups, and I found myself trying to imagine what had happened and to who. Some were at obviously dangerous corners and blind summits, but others were beside perfectly straight, innocuous stretches of highway. Montana has no speed limit on the open highway.

We chugged across gently rolling treeless prairie, the domnant colour of which was yellow-brown, passing through dusty First Nations reserves and a few ugly towns.

We camped at Fresno Reservoir, an eerily beautiful place a few miles north of the highway. There are half a dozen free sites scattered around the reservoir, neglected but passable, and no-one else was there.

At the site we chose a car was parked on the beach, its keys still in the ignition, which struck us as odd -- we wondered whether it had been stolen. The slanting sun's rays made the place seem almost alien, like the surface of Mars... We lit a fire using driftwood, and wandered along the beach in the setting sun. I found several plastic figures half buried in the sand.

As the fire died it became too cold to sit outside, so we went to bed. An hour or so later a tow truck arrived, and with lots of revving and grunting the car on the beach was towed away.

When we awoke the reservoir was hidden by thick mist -- it felt very autumnal.

As we drove that day I kept expecting mountains to rise out of the prairie to the west, but it was afternoon before the first peaks appeared. At midday I picked up e-mail in a motel at Cutbank, being helped by a mournful old man who matched the depressed-looking town, which claims to be the coldest place in the USA.

When we do finally reach mountains, the junction of Rockies and prairie is quite abrupt, with only a suggestion of foothills.

We arrived at Glacier National Park full of expectation, and indeed it is a beautiful place, but perhaps we were over-stimulated by now, numbed by the prairies, but we weren't rendered speechless. There are many places in B.C. that are just as spectacular and more so. But then we didn't spend enough time there to really appreciate its splendours... Next time!

We drove though with dozens of other tourists (grunt), had a cursory look at a campsite on the west side of the park and decided to carry on driving.

Late in the day we found the Forest Service site at McGregor Lake, and since it was so late, slept our last night in the USA in the van, waking again to thick mist.

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  LENORE'S TRAVEL DIARY

Glacier National Park

Glacier National Park